1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for managing device information of a peripheral device.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are device management systems that register a peripheral device connected via a network, manage the registered peripheral device, and manage device information of the registered peripheral device.
Some device management systems are used by a user (a service provider that manages peripheral devices) to manage devices of a plurality of customers (individual people and companies that own the peripheral devices). Such device management systems register and manage for each customer the peripheral devices in a management server. When a device management server and the peripheral devices communicate with each other, they use an authentication key.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-99741 discusses a document management server that associates a group to which an output device belongs with a group to which a document permitted by the output device belongs, and stores this information as management information.
Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (Translation of PCT Application) No. 2005-523505 discusses a method by which a trusted party transmits an authentication response message for authentication for a transaction between the account owner and a requesting party in payment by a credit card.
When a peripheral device is to be registered in such a device management service, a user has to operate an operation panel to specify a customer of a registration destination with which the peripheral device is to be registered from a plurality of customers managed by the user.
One possible method for specifying the customer of the registration destination is to operate the operation panel of the peripheral device to log in the device management service to select the customer of the registration destination from a customer list. However, the customer list may be unable to be displayed due to a lack of the operation panel or limited operability of the operation panel, depending on the type of the peripheral device.
Further, another possible method is to select the customer of the registration destination with which the peripheral device is to be registered by accessing the peripheral device via a web browser that operates on a personal computer (PC). However, it may be difficult for the user to bring in a PC and connect the PC to a customer's network in light of security depending on the customer's environment.